Change
by TheFirstWaltz
Summary: Something has to change. The battle is over, the dust is settling, and no one is saying a word. But there is still change to be had, change to be done. Yet another of my Yuki x Tohru fanfictions. Please enjoy. COMPLETED AFTER TWO YEARS!
1. Part I: Chapter One

**I'm still working on Straight Lines, so here's something to distract my brain from all the darkness and woe with more darkness and woe. Enjoy. This takes place shortly before the end of the manga (not the anime). A note: I draw characters' eye and hair colors from the MANGA, not the anime. The manga came first, so I go by it. Let's do this.**

**I do not own Fruits Baskets. **

**Part I: **Graduation

There was a scandal about the valedictorian. Traditionally, the student with the highest exam scores would read the stuffy, pompous masterpiece that had saluted students on their way out for the last thirty years. It was either an honor or a farce, depending on who you listened to. In Sohma Yuki's case, it was a humiliation.

He hadn't gotten the highest scores on the exams. That was fine. His scores took him to where he wanted to go, which was far, far away. Far, far away from his idiot cousins and maybe, if he went far enough, away from himself. He thought he was an idiot too. But somehow, people were still convinced that he was the paragon of humanity, an utter perfection. Besides, when the newspapers took pictures of the ceremony for the local news, wouldn't the Prince Charming be the perfect poster valedictorian? Thus, the frankly horrific, bloated monstrosity of a graduation speech was pried from the sweaty palms of _Ichiban-san _and pushed into Yuki's chest.

**Chapter One:**

He stared in the mirror, wishing he was drunk. Drunk or struck down by the Plague. But no, it was manifest that Sohma Yuki would look as beautiful as he did for the day he would graduate and make himself look like a complete asshole in front of his peers and, more importantly, Honda-san. She'd been Tohru since December, but as graduation drew near and his impending departure - escape - loomed, he tried to think of her as something less personal. Farther and farther away. He rubbed hair away from his eyes, groaning at his reflection. Well, at least you weren't allowed to smile during a graduation ceremony. He wouldn't have to pretend to do that.

The silver-haired teen turned his attention to his bed, which was dominated by a hulking monolith of a duffel bag. In it was everything he wanted to take with him and relatively nothing he needed. That would be defeating the purpose of escaping. He hesitated, feeling his will weaken as his gaze bore holes into the dresser next to his bed. Maybe one thing, one thing to steal away with him. He slipped his hand into the drawer and pulled it out, feeling relief spread through his body as it settled in his hand. He was opening up the duffel to tuck it inside when Tohru knocked on his door, calling, "Yuki-kun! We have to leave soon." Kyo added, his voice muffled, "Don't spend too much time on your hair, Pretty Boy."

Yuki crushed it in his hand, actually hearing his heart break as it was deformed in his fist. Striding to the door, he stuffed it into his uniform's pocket. He opened the door and said to the brunette waiting for him, "I'm ready to go."

She smiled, sweet face tipped up to his, brown hair brushed away from her face and held back by a sparkly clip left over from her childhood. Tohru was opening her mouth to point out that his tie was undone when she discovered that it wasn't. Her hands, already in the act of rising to his collar, went limp and seemed to die, falling back to her sides. For a moment, Yuki could tell she knew. She took a breath that seemed to suck in the dead air between them, then smiled again. She said, already beginning to head back down the hallway to the stairs, "Well then, let's go. We can't let the valedictorian be late."

He followed her down the stairs and watched silently as she and Kyo put on their shoes at the door, the cat's hand covering hers protectively. He watched them stand, Tohru scrutinizing Kyo's uniform for lint or wrinkles. She had convinced him to wear his collar buttoned properly, his tie straight and tight. Kyo said something funny, her face lighting up as she laughed. She went on tip-toes to whisper something in his ear.

Yuki was going to go far, far away. He would accept the goddamn truth, read the ostentatious speech he had been awarded by eclipsing a deserving classmate for the adoring masses, let his eyes glaze over with the gratitude that finally, _finally_, it would be over.

Tohru and Kyo, still holding hands, stepped out into the frothy light of a spring morning. Pastels washed around them, saturating the turquoise sky and promising great things. The brunette spun in a circle, arms out as if to embrace that technicolor sky. Kyo said, "What're you doing?"

"Rejoicing."

Unlike Yuki, who seemed to let words sink into him slowly, broth seeping into bread, Kyo seemed to chew on words. He did so now, rolling it around, tasting the implications, mashing it. He replied, grinning, "I guess it's something worth celebrating, grown' up." She took his hand and lifted it with hers to the sky. "It looks like you can touch it." He laughed and let their arms drop, orange hair setting the world on fire. He glanced over his shoulder back at the house, asking, "What d'you think that rat's doin', putting in curlers?"

"He's doing something important," Tohru replied, not really knowing why she was defending Yuki-kun when he was, when he was… She continued, "Probably packing up one last thing before we have to go."

Kyo sniffed, shrugged, and turned in the direction they would have to walk to get to school. "Well," he said, "we have to go. Let him be late if he wants to be."

Tohru thought about waiting, really. But the candy-striped world around her opened its arms and welcomed her into its embrace. The brunette caught up with Kyo and took his hand, swinging it absentmindedly before he yanked it away, face red. And it was that, him shaking his hand from hers, that changed their future. If Kyo had held her hand, Tohru would have never looked back.

She would have never seen Yuki standing in the house's doorway, chest simply caved in where his heart used to be.

Then Kyo said, "C'mon, Tohru, we'll really be late." And he was gone.

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

The principal was finishing up his speech, concluding his usual tirade against the delinquency of the modern age with an optimistic note about the class graduating. This was to be expected. The man nodded his head in what he supposed was a sagacious nod, the nod of a scholar, but rather looked like he was ducking a wasp. Then he stepped away from the podium and gestured to stage right. "And here is your fellow classmate and student body president Sohma Yuki for final remarks."

Well, at least that introduction make it sound somewhat acceptable. He strode out onto the stage, shaking hands with the headmaster before standing before the podium. He looked like a model student. Handsome, clever, uniform perfectly straight and pressed. Bullshit. He looked down at his hands, then at the photocopied speech he was supposed to read. In his mind, he could hear himself saying it. _As spring is upon us, our time at this school ends. Just as blossoms have bloomed on the trees around us, we too must leave this place with hope in our hearts…_ The light from the stage around him seemed to blanch out the words on the page. He tried to look out into the students to find Tohru, but it was so bright the audience was left in darkness.

Fine, if not the Plague, then perhaps lightning? The gymnasium had fallen silent. Everyone was patiently waiting for him to confirm how much of a charade the whole ordeal was. He opened his mouth. _As spring is upon us, our time at this school ends. Just as blossoms have bloomed on the trees around, we too must leave this place with hope in our hearts… _Absolutely nothing. Now the page seemed to shake. Yuki sucked in a breath and leaned forward on the podium, wishing that the lights would go away and the page would stop moving quite so much. Then, from the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of light form the hidden audience. Tohru's hair clip. Everything seemed to settle back into a flat line and he stood properly, his back rigid. His hand snuck into his pocket and clasped the totem there, feeling it crackle even more against his touch. By the end of the speech, it would probably be completely ruined. But just as the blossoms have bloomed on the trees around us, we too must leave this place with hope in our hearts.

Yuki opened his mouth again and delivered the speech.

**So, here's how this is going to work. There are three parts, the first being Graduation. I'll tell you the names of the parts as we get to them, but for now I'll keep them secret, just to annoy y'all. Each part will have three chapters, mostly because it's the school year and I am only thinking in bursts of about 1500 words at a time. So yes, they're short, but in the end you'll have a three-part story with about 15000 words or so under its belt. So have patience with me. Lots of love to returning readers and welcome mats to new ones!**


	2. Part I: Chapter Two

**Well, it's been an obscene amount of time, but I'm back for the next chapter. I have a confession to make: when I write, I don't have any idea of where I am going other than a general ending. Thus giving y'all a detailed structure of how this fic was going to be laid out was a bad, nay, terrible idea. Let's just hope that what comes will stay relatively close to somewhere near that.**

**I do not own Fruits Basket.**

**Part I: **Graduation

Yuki was determined. He was going to get very drunk and he was going to go downstairs and sit in the midst of the party going on, speaking to no one, watching pastel faces with gemstone eyes weave through his alcohol-riddled sight. That way he would not have to look happy. He'd just have to look inebriated.

Which, as it was turning out, was harder than he thought. He'd never had beer before, but thinking of the occasional drunk he'd encountered, it seemed so _easy_. He looked down at his hands, watching the soft shine of his nails go in and out of focus. Right.

He'd failed to be drunk for the speech. He'd failed to thank Tohru for everything she had done for him. He'd failed to leave it all behind him. But this? This he could do just fine.

**Chapter Two:**

_Ichiban-san_ had come to shake his hand. Yuki stood, faintly feeling his weight being gently cradled from one side to the other, and stared at the offered hand in front of him. _Ichiban-san_, somehow still able to make a polo shirt and jeans look fussy and perfectly pressed, cleared his throat and repeated, this time more slowly, "I wish you luck, Sohma-kun."

Yuki finally put out his hand, swearing as his depth perception failed him and he missed. Apologetically, he moved his dusty gray eyes to the black ones of his fellow graduate. He watched impassively, starting to feel seasick from his involuntary swaying, as _Ichiban-san_ cocked his head to the side, one eyebrow quirking up. There was a moment of comprehensive silence in which he could hear the true valedictorian think, _Really?_ Then it was over and he had carefully taken Yuki's hand in his, slowly shaking his hand. It was disconcerting, how Yuki had managed to ruin this enduring person's final triumph of high school, and yet… And yet all _Ichiban-san_ wanted to do was to congratulate him and yes, _pity_ him. And for a terrible moment, Yuki thought the ever-scrutinizing eyes of the class genius knew.

He slipped his hand from _Ichiban-san_'s grasp and stored it in his pocket, fingering the totem there. He felt someone move to his side as he glared defensively – or as best as he could while alcohol dripped thickly and sweetly through his veins – at _Ichiban-san_. "Ichiba-…Fukazawa-san, I didn't realize you had come!" Tohru said, bowing, "There are refreshments in the kitchen. Please excuse me for the mess."

_Ichiban-san_ moved his gaze from Yuki to Tohru, smiling. "Only my mother calls me 'Ichiba Fukazawa'." he joked, letting his hand drop to his side. Tohru went pink around the ears, her face tensing into panic before he added hastily, "But, of course, it's fine for tonight."

Out of Tohru's line of vision, Yuki winced. Even drunk – a condition which made everything reasonable and perhaps even clever - he could tell that sounded awkward. But he knew Honda-san would let it slide as she always did with Shigure. Maybe she genuinely didn't pick up on the underlying, distinct _creepiness_ of what Hatsuharu, Ayame, and Shigure had said to her. Or maybe, as Yuki liked to think, she simply cared for people's hearts more than their actions. He fervently prayed so. He was, after all, going far, far away. He hoped she would be able to see beyond that.

_Ichiban-san_ bowed and excused himself from the conversation, heading off to the kitchen. Almost immediately, what little ease there had been in the atmosphere between Yuki and Tohru dissipated. The rat hunched his shoulders. The seasickness was only getting worse, but that was secondary to the inebriation seeping right out of him. He could feel everything laboring back into his mind like delinquents sneaking back home after curfew. He was so distracted by it that he was surprised when Tohru said next to him in a measured voice, "Are you having fun, Yuki-kun?"

He might have been imagining it, but was there reproach in her voice? The past few weeks before graduation had been evidence that she at least cared that he was leaving, especially since he was going so far. But she'd never questioned his motives for leaving, as if she already knew. As if she had decided she valued her growing love for Kyo over the friendship she had with Yuki. He'd prepared himself to have to explain himself somehow to _someone_, but this was infinitely worse. He felt exposed and hunted. Even the question, reproach or no, seemed too invasive. She couldn't ask one thing without asking about the other. It wasn't fair. None of it was.

But he was doing it to himself, _for_ himself. Originally he had thought of it as noble and politic, giving that damn cat room to do as he liked, since the outcome was so apparent to Yuki. Now that ineffable tone in Honda-san's voice made him feel selfish more than anything else. He was deluding himself. He wasn't doing this for anyone's happiness but his own, and perhaps not even that.

And yet he still had to go. He had to go far, far away.

"You host excellent parties." he said, forcing himself to face her and smile as he avoided the question. Tohru nodded, that sparkly clip in her hair catching the light in such a way that Yuki could not help but follow its path with his eyes. Before he could think, he said, "You helped me with the speech. Thank you."

She blinked up at him, confused. It was an old habit, to tell her such things. He had to stop. But, maybe, just once more. He continued, "I saw your hairclip shining in the audience and it made me less nervous."

She blinked again, then asked, "You were nervous?"

Maybe that was what she had seen on his face when she glanced over her shoulder that morning. She bit her lip, the confusion and sadness in her expression evident. Yuki-kun would be able to see it. He always saw everything she felt. Used to see.

_But maybe, just once more_. The rat held his hand out, palm up, for Tohru's. With the other, he set his drink down on a table nearby. Face turned away from hers, he said, "Let's go up to the roof."

The brunette automatically turned her head to see if Kyo-kun was watching. The orange-haired cat was in the midst of an arm wrestling match with Uo-chan in the corner, a small group of classmates cheering them on as they strained futilely against each other. She returned to facing front, catching the frayed edges of Yuki's emotion in his eyes. It was that subtle, repentant facet that tarnished the gray of his eyes that made her set her drink down next to his and take his hand.

They had done this before, when Kyo was asleep on the side of the roof facing the moon. They would lie back on the opposite side, keeping their voices low as cautiously, they drew forward things from each other's hearts that, minutes later, would be forgotten in the shadow of some new, greater discovery.

They had lain on their sides facing each other, leaving nothing to hide the transparent things that sailed across their features as they spoke. Now, the rat and the brunette lay shoulder to shoulder, both looking up at the indigo eternity of the sky. Finally, Tohru said, "They're going to miss us downstairs."

"They're going to miss you, at the very least."

She stared at the barely visible profile of Yuki's face from the corner of her eye. He hadn't said it with any sense of indignation or resentfulness. It was merely a fact to him, that he would not be missed. A false fact, but a truth to him nonetheless. Something behind her heart, nestled there in the warmth and darkness, began to wither. What world had he spun around himself into an impenetrable shell while she wasn't watching?

Instead of asking him, she said, "You're the valedictorian. Of course they'll miss you."

He said nothing in response. Tohru ventured, yielding to old habit and shifting to lie on her side, "You read it beautifully. I'm glad I could help you, Yuki-kun."

Even the house seemed to shift beneath his back, the tiles still slightly warm from the sun, rocking him. Yuki moved to face her then. He drew in a breath, the breath that had sat dead between them since that morning, and said, "You never asked why."

Her brown eyes flitted through several emotions before submerging into resolve. She shrugged and lied. "I don't know why I never asked."

Of course she knew. She was letting him go, relieving him from whatever pain that had slowly taken over him, body and soul, in the past few months. He had to go, or he'd recede back into the gossamer place where his anxieties picked at his conscience until it bled. Why else would she let someone she loved go?

The inky darkness that expanded around them seemed to crowd closer, making her eyes water. Below, Uo-chan's cry of victory rose, brittle and inconsequential through the air and evaporated in the night air. She added, "Maybe I never thought you would actually leave."

Almost immediately, she regretted it. It was too close to the truth. She could see something sparking behind his eyes, a tiny explosion of hope and desperation that made the sleepless shadows beneath his eyes justified. It became clear to her. It wasn't what world he had swathed himself in, but what world he had trustingly followed her into.

She had done this to Sohma Yuki.

_She_ had done this to Sohma Yuki.

The silver-haired rat had failed to come up with a safe response to her admission. Instead, he watched silently as some new revelation brought clarity to her face. He reached for her hand, and finding it, drew it up with his so that the two hands sat intertwined between their chests. The heaving of the seasickness was growing stronger and stronger now that his heart was racing, the alcohol that had been intended to help him in this exact situation being pushed from his body in sharp waves.

When she finally had to breathe, it came in a rapid gasp, the sparkling clip holding her hair back from her face so that Yuki could watch the tears coming to her eyes. He lifted his other hand and wiped the water from her cheek when it began to escape. "I'm sorry." he said softly.

"No, I-…" Tohru began, her voice catching on that place behind her heart and knotting there. What replaced it was a sob.

"I'm sorry." he said again, this time even softer. Tohru shook her head, closing her eyes so that he couldn't watch anymore. She tried to say no, tried to say that she was the one that was sorry, but it wouldn't come loose in her chest. She felt him drawing closer, his body becoming the structure to which she clung as she cried, her head bowed against his chest so that he could not transform.

"I'm sorry." Yuki said.

The night turned its back as she lifted her face to meet his, bring her mouth to his in wordless agreement.

**Please review. I have no idea anymore.**


	3. Part I: Chapter Three

**I made a decision about this story last night. If I get a strong enough reaction against it, t****hen I will rewrite the chapter. So if you really disagree with the decision, don't drop the story. Review, give me all the flame you've got, and come back in a month. Likewise, if you're all for it, don't let the hate drown you out. Show some love.**

**I do not own Fruits Basket.**

**Part I: **Graduation

The morning brought clarity, a concrete thunderstorm on the rim of the sky, and a logic-splitting headache. Yuki stared out of the window at the distant weather and tried to make the headache go away. If he couldn't get rid of the headache, maybe he could make the clarity go away instead. Today was the day. That was enough to make the fireworks that had exploded so _unexpectedly_ through chaos nothing but a bare memory, a tortured thing that stuck to his fingertips.

The storm was sidling closer, beginning to swirl the verdant treetops into its vortex. Yuki watched the sun fight feebly at the corner of the world and lost himself in noise.

Behind him, Tohru turned away from the broaching light in her sleep.

**Chapter Three:**

There must have been a moment, somewhere between then and now, where he had questioned himself. No, maybe questioning himself wasn't enough; he did that too much already. What it should have been was a scream.

Yuki crouched and found his pants. Or, at least, he found _a_ pair of pants. He'd forgotten which pair he'd been wearing the night before, and his scrambled floor was no enlightenment. He remembered faintly deciding to clean up before he left, but there was no hope of that now. He had mistreated his time.

While putting on the pants, he noticed that his hands were shaking. On any other morning, he wouldn't have managed to observe something so minor, let alone manage to put on pants. The headache prickled at the base of his skull, jabbing him into action. It made him gasp under his breath, and the sound of that alone granted last night permission to flood back. He went back to the bed and sat on the edge of his side, bringing his trembling hands to grip at his head. The view of the floor of his bedroom, framed by the edge of the bed, his legs, and his bare feet, wavered, the grain of the wood standing out like graffiti. _You're nothing_, Akito whispered through the crack of the door, the light from the outside burning with the fire of unrepentant truth.

It should have been a scream.

Eventually, he stood, his arms swinging away from his head. The rat took one more glance at the window at the storm. His plane would be delayed, then. He closed the curtains in disgust.

He hadn't slept. Perhaps he had slept, but he couldn't recall the heaviness of mind that reflected time passing unwatched. His room offered no further help, shapes sharp in the cast of dusky light. Only Tohru, facing away, her hair spreading like cracks across his pillow, was out of focus. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, using the back of his hand. It would help if he could conjure up some image of what they had done last night, their mouths close enough to each other's ears that every breath was nothing less than a revelation. But that was all there was. Darkness had assured that they could not look each other in the eye and know it.

Yuki's other hand tightened, then went slack. It was a terrible thing to want an image. He removed his hand from him eyes and looked down at Tohru again, his throat sticking against itself painfully. He couldn't bring himself to wake her to say good-bye. The rat slipped his hand into the pocket of his pants and drew out the totem, inspecting it as it settled in his palm, light as air. It was crushed, its loops flattened and the central knot pulled too tight from stress.

Tohru stirred again in her sleep, tilting her face so that it burrowed farther into Yuki's pillow. Jumping, the silver-haired boy shoved the totem back into his pocket.

He was going to go far, far away, wasn't he? The more he tried to imagine himself elsewhere, the more he closed his eyes and wished, the more sweetly her voice made his thoughts languid and indeterminate. And now, no amount of distance would relieve that pressure. No amount of distance would change that change was not going to be sufficient. But maybe it would be far enough that she would eventually forgive him for what he had done.

That was what happened, he decided, walking as soundlessly as he could to where his duffel had been moved. He must have manipulated her, convinced her that one final moment would be satisfied. She couldn't have been the one who guided him to a precipice of mental dilemma, volunteered an eager race to reluctance. It must have been him. The rat swallowed.

_What had he done?_

The light in the room was now dimmer as the sky darkened with oncoming rain. The shadows seeping forward made everything duller. Even the graffiti starkness of the wood grain on Yuki's floor no longer blared accusations at him. Hands shaking again, the noise crashing in great swells against his mind, the rat hesitantly took a step back toward Tohru. Had she done this with Kyo? When she did wake up, would she remember as he did, her hands shifting purposelessly as her fingertips and palm scalded in her conscience?

He had to go far, far away. He couldn't stay and face the lingering sensations torturing him, tempting him, incriminating him. To stay now would be to cause more damage than he could possibly imagine. How much damage had he already instilled?

He had to leave before he ruined Tohru's happiness, and by proxy, his. The rat's eyes darkened. He could not forget Kyo's happiness, as well.

_But maybe, just once more…_

He stared at Tohru, lips parted, trying to form the two words. But at last, his body denied him his final indulgence. At last, he had learned. Yuki could not say good-bye.

The rat picked up the duffel and balanced it so it would not pull at one shoulder more strongly than at the other. He picked his way to the door of his room, then down the stairs, and out into the storm swallowing the morning. In two hours or so, Hatori would be by with the car, meeting a silent Tohru at the door and standing stoically as it was explained that Yuki had already left. Then he would bow and excuse himself before Shigure caught whiff of his presence and descend upon him with gleeful deviousness. The dragon would not miss the shame that was sure to be in the brunette's eyes.

It was only twenty-two minutes later, long on his way to the closest train station, that Yuki could bring himself to whisper, "Good-bye,"

**It's short, I know. Please review.**


	4. Part II: Chapter One

**Author's Note: For many years now, I have interpreted Yuki as heading toward an international profession, specifically in communications and translation. I feel that as a human being, he would pursue a career that helped him create understanding between people of great difference working toward coexistence - unconsciously looking to be understood himself. In this story, I go into more detail on the process of becoming a multilingual translator. I will try to remain as accurate to the actual system as possible, but there will be discretions. **

**Finally, the university Yuki attends is, in fact, real. I hold no association with the university and in no way own rights to its name, location, or academic programs. **

**I do not own Fruits Basket.**

**Part****II:**Away

It was lunchtime when the plane carrying Yuki and 154 other bruise-faced people crash-landed onto the earth with a high-pitched scream. That's what it felt like to Yuki, at least. Around him, more experienced travelers seemed to accept the fact that they had just flown halfway around the world in less than a day; even the sun shining outside of the porthole rejected that fifteen hours had been very long at all. The woman who had been sitting next to Yuki stretched with that same infuriating ease and said to him in broken Japanese, "I slept the whole time. It was wonderful."

_Bullshit._

**Chapter One:**

The capital of the United States of America was deceitful. On paper, it was annoyingly simple: no major roads crossed each other at right angles. Fair enough. Yuki had lived with the burden of Ayame long enough that he could handle things not being exactly straight. After that, the streets were lettered and numbered, which was more than what could be said of Tokyo.

So why was it that when he looked up from the map, he was _still_ hopelessly lost?

There was L Street, and there was the Mount Vernon Triangle, right there in plain English, and when he begrudgingly looked back to reality to compare it to the map, nothing looked like an 'L' and nothing looked like a triangle. He sighed and stopped himself before his hands could choke the map into a crumpled mess.

He should have seen past his own false bravado and purchased the map in Japanese. Now he would pay the consequences. Grimacing, he folded and stowed the map with the meticulous motions of a person restraining himself. He turned back the way he had come, retracing what steps he could remember to the spot where the taxi driver had dumped him, pointed in the direction of the crooked streets, and said, "Gallaudet s'right there."

His head still hurt. Fifteen hours later and his head still hurt. Yuki paused and drew in a breath that rattled uncertainly in his chest. Months ago, when he had used the computer at the school to look up universities in the United States and the United Kingdom, it was an entertaining fantasy. While his grades were not to the degree that he could get into any university he wanted in Japan, elsewhere, he was unlikely to be turned down. Perhaps he ultimately chose Gallaudet University because it was composed of people looking to learn how to live in a world they did not belong. He had never seen a deaf person before, and did not know how to speak to them. Then again, they didn't know how to speak to him. It was a perfectly foreign place to start.

The intersection he was approaching was larger than the past few. Half-expecting the street signs to be written in Arabic for pure spite, Yuki read, "Florida Ave." Beneath that sign was another, a brown one the color of Tohru's eyes…

He screwed his eyes shut and wished the leap in his pulse away…

…The brown sign with an arrow and "Gallaudet University" in white letters directed Yuki to cross the busy street. He slowed as his feet touched on the edge of the campus. The sign the color of Tohru's eyes seared into his back, a rectangle of raised sensation that spread on his shoulder blades. No one had seen him, no one cared. If he just turned and left, no one would be looking for him. Not even Tohru, brushing the spongy soil from her hands as she watched Yuki plant the last of the bulbs in the row, of which she had only managed to plant the one. She laughed and smiled anyway. She could not be smiling now. _Could__she?_

He picked up his foot and carefully stepped over the border of concrete and grass. The sound of green crinkling under his shoe seemed as obtrusive as glass shattering, but none of the people milling around campus glanced in his direction. Yuki curved his shoulders, feeling ridiculous for expecting something else, and went to find where he signed in for housing.

He had made the decision to be agreeable and even outspoken if he could manage it. Reserve and melancholy were traits on the whole not appreciated by new friends. He accepted the packet of information the blonde girl passed him from across the plastic table, bowing as he slipped it from her hands. New friends. Even thinking it, in the privacy of his mind, had the feeling of betrayal and denial. Had he ever had friends? His experience with them had been restricted to the delinquents on the student council – two phrases that should never be put together – and a few groggy shreds of faces. That was all that was left of the friends that had drifted from him before his high school years. Or perhaps he had drifted from them in some small, imperceptible way.

Tohru tilted her head at an angle against the roof tile, the line of her neck a gentle slope down to the point of no return to come. _You__'__re__the__valediction.__Of__course__they__'__ll__miss__you._

He turned away from the table and the blonde, sliding between patiently waiting newcomers until he was free from the forest of foreign faces. He scanned the printed map of the campus that served as the coversheet, determined to never have to rely on it again. Maybe if he looked assured and walked like he knew where he was going, he could convince himself it was true. For a minute, he flicked through the rest of the packet, reading line after line of incomprehensible requirements and contracts with increasing panic. Already he'd forgotten the name of the street he'd just crossed to get onto campus.

Yuki gave up and flipped back to the map. _Florida__Ave.__Easy__enough._ If he could remember that, and failed in all else, he would have at least learned something. _At__least__I__learned__something,_ Tohru said, wrapping a piece of gauze in an endless loop over her index finger. What was there to learn from cutting yourself in the kitchen, he had asked. She just kept winding, the gauze making the joint in her finger unnaturally rigid. Eventually, she had replied, _I__learned__that__I__'__ll__cut__myself__if__I__don__'__t__pay__attention,__even__if__I__'__ve__cut__vegetables__every__day__since__I__was__little._ Jeez, Kyo said from the doorway, you have to pay more attention. You're going to do something really stupid one day.

It was a terrible thing to want an image. He had so many others that had more value, ones that he could describe in sure, simple sentences. Images that he could pick up from Japanese and set down on the precarious tower of English vocabulary. Images that he could use to prove a point, to convey something powerful, to epitomize an experience. Images that were a bated breath away.

His eyes floated over the lines of the map, looking for something that certainly wasn't there. Instead, he found his dormitory, as they were called, and the English Language Institute, not very far away. Of course, that was all across campus. He aligned himself with the map and set off, counting the steps to distract his mind from the endless search for something, anything, to be a replacement image.

Yuki Sohma counted the number of steps before he had to stop, turn, and look back once more at the sign the color of Tohru's eyes.

**The next few chapters are going to be difficult. Combined with the promise I made to be as accurate as I could about the programs and Washington D.C. will be something I can only describe as absolute misery punctuated with striking flashes of joy.**

**Then again, everything I write feels like that. We'll just have to wait and see together, then.**

**Please review. **


	5. Part II: Chapter Two

**I live! The first part was rather closely grouped together, but the second part is spaced out over the process of a year. Keep that in mind as you read, and enjoy!**

**Part II: **Away

His postal box was labeled like a museum artifact – _Sōma Yūki_, as if his mail was something preserved from the Edo period. At first the Japanese man had simply ignored the label, introducing himself in the Western manner: first name, then surname. He had been expecting for his classmates to be ignorant of his customs and routinely call him by his first name in a blatant breach of privacy, but he was soon proved wrong. Being called Sohma-san all over again was almost disturbing, especially once his colleagues had trained their ear to his dialect and parroted the syllables back to him perfectly. While they waved his returned politeness away without a second thought, insisting that he call them by their first names and that only, the pristine maintenance of their conscientiousness to his culture endured.

After a month of embracing the Western style of introducing himself, only to be discouraged by the immediate question – "Don't you say your last name first, like the Chinese do? Fa Mulan and all." – Yuki gave up and resigned himself to being Sohma Yuki-san. He hated it. He hated being Sohma-san, separated from the Alyssas and Rainers. The other international students were just as foreign as he was; why was it he of all of them that was prevented from trying to embrace his current home? The label on his postal box only served to remind him of that.

It was for that reason that Sohma Yuki was glaring when he opened his postal box and found the letter.

**Chapter Two:**

The envelope was smaller than the business-class mail, a light blue that he instantly recognized. He had bought this stationary less than a year before for New Year's, spent an hour agonizing over how to wrap it before he tenderly crafted the gift, nearly shredding the yellow ribbon he had picked to make a bow before relenting and discarding the failed idea. Yuki stared at it in his hand, dumbfounded, his other hand at his shoulder to keep the strap of his schoolbag from slipping.

Tohru had been entertaining the possibility of being a caretaker at a preschool, at Yuki's suggestion and Kisa's encouragement. _But I'm not qualified to watch after children_, the brunette had protested, serving more tea with legs tucked to the side, one stockinged calf disappearing under the kotatsu. He could remember that detail - the smooth, matte color of the stocking and the curve of the leg against the varied golden of tatami, the billow of the kotatsu - better than he could remember her troubled expression. Of course you're qualified, he had said with the tilt of his head and an easy smile. Children love you and you want everyone to be happy. That's all that matters. She had smiled at him in return, which always made Yuki feel somewhat guilty; her smile was so gorgeous, so illuminating, that it seemed unfair for him to not be able to give her something just as wonderful in return. Instead, he had woven their fingers together in a loose tapestry, sipping from his tea to disguise his expression. He had already known by then that she and Kyo belonged to each other – it was a mutual happiness that the former rat could not ignore. But when she merely squeezed their hands together, commenting, _it must be true if Yuki-kun thinks so_, he had hoped. And hope is such horrible thing to have when all that is hoped for is that someone else's happiness is false.

He had purchased the stationary thinking that it was the perfect thing for a caretaker to write notes to parents on: cheerful, pure, and feminine. Tohru had gasped at it, holding the box in her hands with the wrapping paper spread like a flag on her lap, brown eyes so bright with the joy of it that Yuki shied away, saying indistinctly that she should write to her mother about her new dream, that the address of the stationary store was at the bottom of the box, once her supplies needed to be replenished. _Thank you_, she had exclaimed, tears in her eyes, _I'm so happy_.

And now he was holding it in his hand, miserable with the knowledge that he had robbed her of that happiness. He couldn't have left without soiling that thing which he cherished most. Rats are conniving creatures, will turn everything to rot that they cannot keep for themselves. It was in his nature to be so cruel.

Yuki put the letter in the pocket of his jacket and tried to imagine that he couldn't feel the sharp corner of it against his leg as he climbed the stairs to his room.

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

"It's from a girl you knew in Japan?" his roommate quipped, his eyes glinting with the possibility of uncovering a greatly protected secret. Sohma Yuki was so reserved, after all, and had never spoken of having a sister or knowing any girl in the least. "Yes, it is from a girl I knew in Japan." Yuki replied patiently, masking the rigidity of his shoulders with the chore of hanging up his jacket as his roommate spun the envelope between his two index fingers, toying with it like it was a completely extraordinary object. He yearned to turn around and snatch it from his roommate's grasp, to say that if it was such an extraordinary thing, then it had to be treated with respect rather than cavalier behavior. "She must be some kind of girl." the other college student commented, setting the envelope down on Yuki's desk where he had found it and bending forward to examine it from the side, eyesight level with the desktop, "Most girls would just send you a text or something. Is it serious?"

Yuki froze, the jacket and hanger clutched in his hands as he asked slowly, "Is what serious?"

"You and the girl you knew in Japan. Postage must cost a fortune. Hey, why haven't you mentioned her before? I feel like such a dick for trying to convince you to ask Julianna out, now."

"…A dick,"

His roommate laughed at him and retreated to his bed, which he sat on with legs crossed while he relished the humor at Yuki's expense. "Yeah, a dick." He finally wheezed, "You know, a fool, a dumbass, a jerk. I keep forgetting you didn't spend like every summer here since you were a kid or something; your English is usually so natural."

Now Yuki was certain that he was being patronized. It was true that he could write and read English with reasonable proficiency, but he was about as skilled in conversational English – especially American conversation – as a philosopher is able to speak monosyllabically. On the other hand, Yuki was capable of speaking monosyllabically with an almost eerie talent, he had discovered. Perhaps his roommate was sensing an increased ease in their conversation, the former rat thought bitterly as he sat at his desk and unearthed his notes from his lecture that day from his schoolbag, pushing past layers of papers that would make a geologist weak at the knees, because the "dick" rarely varied his vocabulary or, for that matter, the actual content of the conversation. He sighed and stopped himself from the sour thought. It was all part of becoming accustomed to America. Soon he wouldn't notice that it was tedious at all.

He tried reading his notes, exceedingly sensitive of the fact that his roommate was pointedly looking at his back, waiting for the silver-haired boy to open his mail and share its enigmatic contents. It only drove Yuki to stare at the page harder, clearing his throat once to keep his heart from rocketing out of his chest in anticipation. But eventually, he yielded to expectations once again and reached for the envelope, brushing his fingers over his name, written first in the strange, familiar elongated letters of a person who learned the Latin-based alphabet second-hand, then in the tight scrawl of characters that seemed to him like flower buds, spiraled closed and waiting to bloom. Everything Tohru did exuded not an air of confidence or necessarily talent, but _possibility_. Anything could be achieved around her. She enabled the opportunity.

Yes, he _had_ taken advantage of the opportunity, hadn't he?

With held breath, he slit the top of the envelope with a pen and coaxed the tightly folded sheets of paper from the pouch. She had even written on the back of the pieces of paper, although there was no pattern of daisies, no lines to guide the direction of her characters on that side. "So, what is the girl you know in Japan writing to you about?" his roommate asked, having sat forward until his craned neck would allow him a peek at the complicated flow of Japanese characters. His gray eyes read the first few lines over and over again, barely believing what they said, before Yuki replied, "We were not in a relationship. Honda-san…"

The lie sank beneath his tongue as he silently flipped the page and read the back. His roommate sat back again, tipping his head to the side as if he were expecting a photographer to burst into the room and snap his picture for a fashion ad. Yuki's voice returned to the sentence gradually, finally, "…Honda-san has written to tell me that the peonies I planted are covered in ants and that she is worried that they are eating the plant." There was more, the letter weaving in and out of superficiality in a way that almost seemed as though the genuine sections of the letter were written on the back of the stationary rather than the front. It was endearing, it really was.

His roommate groaned and said, disappointed, "All the way across an ocean and she writes to you about peonies. Some girl." He had said it before in admiration; now it was in disbelief. He straightened out and asked sarcastically, "So, are the ants eating the peonies? This sounds like a pressing matter."

Yuki shook his head no, shuffling the pages back to the proper order and starting out again. "The ants are attracted to the sweet smell." He added, voice softer and softer. Tohru knew that she was not required to keep in contact with him, didn't she? He could tell by the shifting tone of the letter that she had written it in pieces, each time in a different mood. Scatter-minded, as always. The young man set the pages down on his desk and pushed away from it, returning his notes to his bag. "Where does one purchase postage?" He asked, head bowed as he added the letter to the assortment of papers in his bag. His roommate shrugged and suggested a convenience store, but Yuki was already halfway out the door, jacket crept halfway up his arms. _She can't be_. _I only left so that she wouldn't have to do this_.

He zipped up his jacket in the hall, ignoring his roommate's jeering call that Yuki had still not said how he knew this girl from Japan, and walked with his face sank into his collar until he was off campus. When he glanced at his bag from the corner of his eye, he could see the sliver of light blue and the edge of a daisy that stuck up at an awkward angle amongst his lecture notes. That incomplete bloom remained with him until he was in a diner not far from Gallaudet. At first, he had been nervous to leave the campus, that magical place of limbo that did not judge him so harshly for his speaking. Now he couldn't keep far enough away from it, politely refusing a second cup of coffee when it was offered to him by a waitress in a green uniform with white piping. Tohru and Gallaudet did not occupy the same world, could not be mixed together. He had left, and that was that.

He was supposed to be far, far away.

Yuki plucked out the page that had captured his attention on the walk over and read the first line of it, rifling for a pen and paper in his bag without looking at it.

…_but with you gone and Kyo-kun spending most of his time at Kureno-san's home, the house doesn't need as much cleaning as it did before. Shig_…

He stopped reading with a flinch, flipping to the back.

…_have enough savings to pay down on an apartment. I'll miss being able to cook for other people, but Uo-chan and Hana-chan and you and Kyo-kun and everyone are welcome to come and share dinner with me! When you come home, I'll bake you a cake. Finally, I'll be able to keep a secret from you – I always told you what kind of cake it was going to be whenever your birthday came around._

The waitress came by again, refilled the coffee cup because the silver-haired young man made no move to stop her, and wandered off again at the beckon of a middle-aged man in a suit.

_Your birthday is in the summer, so you should be home. When are you coming home? I've been trying to tell you everything that's happened (Kisa-chan's gotten her ears pierced, did I mention that?) but I keep forgetting parts of it._

When are you coming home?

Yuki drank the second cup of coffee despite not wanting it.

**I spent a great deal of time debating whether or not I would actually write out Tohru's letter to Yuki. I finally decided against it, thinking that it would just be an insignificant blob of words without it the important parts being drawn forward from the rest of it. **

**Please review.**


	6. Part II: Chapter Three

**Hello, welcome back! Am I saying to myself or my lovely readers? Lord, I don't even know myself.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fruits Basket.**

**Part II:** Away

Yuki was supposed to have an affiliation for the winter. For someone who had been born in the summer, he was remarkably fair and reserved. His name spoke of luck and snow. His colouring was reminiscent of an early hard frost that turned the ashy tint of tree trunks into glittering, icy pillars, breaking to the touch. He was a zodiac, tied to the New Year – more luck, more snow. It felt like there was a disconnect between the songs of cicadas that heralded his birthday and the Christmas carols everyone – teacher, student, and homeless man alike – began to sing under their breath like a mantra for good cheer. He felt no affiliation toward any of the sentiments. He wanted to, though.

And yet, as Washington D.C. succumbed to dirty slush and snowfall like a bad cold, he could not have been less happy to see the season…

**Chapter Three:**

Yuki had sat in the diner with his silver head bent over the letter he was writing in reply until the waitress practically shoved her wristwatch under his nose to alert him to the time. It was past midnight by the time he was back out on the streets, hunched guiltily into his jacket for causing someone such inconvenience. The streets all had lamps, which was more than he could say of the roads to Shigure's house, but darkness crept more distinctly at the edges, people moving in the shadows that may or may not be there. Yuki was chased by the sound of his own footsteps all the way back into his room.

When he finally finished the letter some days later, his roommate swooped down upon it with the glee of a scavenger finally able to feast on carrion. The American's dismayed discovery that it was in Japanese, not English, pulled the foreigner's mouth into a stale smile. You can't be serious! His roommate had exclaimed. You came here to study English and you write back in Japanese? Don't you want this girl to be impressed?

No, he didn't want to impress Honda-san. He wanted her to understand him. That was what learning English was about, anyway: he wanted to be understood, help clarify others and make them understandable as well. Like Tohru, with her back to him in the kitchen, absently tutting at the milk carton she had snatched from Kyo's hands. How can you put up with that Stupid Cat's manners? He had asked, voice too bitter to be talking about drinking milk straight from the carton alone. The brunette had shrugged, lifting up onto the balls of her feet to reach for a glass in the cabinet above her. She was beautiful even when her faults were apparent. She may have been too short to reach the cabinet on flat feet, but she was just as gorgeous stretching for the glass as she would have been if she were naturally tall. _Kyo-kun isn't like Sohma-kun_. She offered eventually, pouring milk into the glass. At that moment, there had been nothing in the world he hated more than Kyo. Always Kyo-kun and Sohma-kun, never Sohma-kun and Yuki-kun. Was it his fault that when he opened his mouth to grant her the freedom to call him by his first name, the words tangled beneath his tongue and ended up in a garbled pile at the back of his throat? _Some people are rude because they want to hurt people._ She had continued, setting the carton back in the refrigerator and finally facing the rat with the glass in her hand. _Kyo-kun is rude because he wants people to notice him. He thinks he has to shout to be heard._ He'd stared after her as she scurried by him to where the television blared and Kyo waited for his glass of milk. Did she really think that orange-haired idiot could be easily drowned out? Everything _about_ Kyo was loud. Yuki had long ago given up trying to raise his voice above the others. Only Tohru heard the quiet gaps where he stood in silence.

…_Everything is different in the United States. They drive on the right side of the road and sprawl out. You would love the National Mall. There's so much space there and sky. I hope your new apartment is near a park. Let me know if you have space for potted plants or flower boxes. I can at least tell you what to put in them. Don't fret and overwater them…_

Even as he put the letter in the mailbox, Yuki regretted writing it so carefully. His letter was much shorter in comparison to hers, succinct and detached. Like he was leaving behind a note to her before going out to run errands. But there was nothing he could say to her that would answer those invisible question marks that stood behind her handwriting. For now, all he could do was apply himself to his studies and repeat to himself that he was too far away to tip her face toward his so that she would look him in the eyes.

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

…_My apartment is perfect. Shigure insisted on buying me a new futon since the bed at his house is too large. But I took the curtains from my room with me. Even as I write, I can see the pre-school kids playing in the park across the street, through the window. You would like the flowers the landlady has planted in front. They bloom in the summer, so maybe I'll have some in a vase for your birthday dinner…_

…_I am sure Shigure expects you to go back and visit him often. I do not want to know what he and Ayame will do without Kyo-kun, Honda-san, and I to torment. If the house is still there, would you go and check on the secret base? It probably needs to be bedded for the winter. There should be a bag of mulch. If not, just use the leaves lying around. I know you won't fail me…_

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

"You're not going home for Christmas?" His roommate asked, sitting up suddenly from how he had laid with his head dangling over the edge of his bed. Yuki shook his head, back drawn into a shield as he hunched over his desk. His roommate's face crumpled into an overwrought expression of contemplation that would have put Shigure's forefinger and thumb to shame. "I guess you don't celebrate Christmas, huh." He finally concluded. The silver-haired man shook his head again, staring wide-eyed at his notes in front of him to keep from rolling his eyes. An expectant silence stretched before the ex-rat sighed softly and sat sideways in his chair so that he could look at the American. "Christmas isn't a religious holiday for us." Yuki said patiently, pale face beginning to flicker pink as he labored toward an explanation. "Most people use Christmas as a time to spend with friends and –" the last word came rushing out of him, forbidden and riding on the surf of a wave of air, " – lovers."

"What, and you don't want to go back and spend some time with that Honda girl?"

Yuki jerked in his chair, voice going sharp. "I told you that Honda-san and I aren't in a relationship." His roommate grinned and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I know, I know, but you said that it was a holiday for friends too, right?" The American countered innocently, trying not to laugh. It was mystifying; every other week, a small blue envelope would appear in the foreigner's hands. He would drop back into the room long enough to put away his schoolwork before setting out again, head down as if he was trying to fold himself around the correspondence. If his roommate asked after the content, Yuki would shrug and ramble off a sequence of mundane events that had been related to him – names of people the American didn't know and offhanded mentions of the ubiquities of Japanese life that did not reach their full meaning in translation. It didn't seem to mean anything in itself, but the small blue envelopes were the only thing Yuki's roommate had seen that could make the ex-rat speak when solicited about his life back home. The American shrugged again and said, "Well, you're going home for New Year's, right? I know that's important. What year will it be?"

"It will be the year of the snake."

His roommate blinked at the prompt, clipped nature of the response. He smiled weakly, nervous suddenly to ask. The guy was practically laconic; several months and he was only now beginning to notice the indicators that he had somehow offended the Sohma. Yuki shrugged his shoulders minutely, shifting in his chair to face his desk again. "It is important, but I am not going home. It's in February, in the middle of the quarter." He replied, looking now at the grain of his desk and trying to match it to the grain of his former bedroom's floor. It was close, but not close enough. Behind him, his roommate snorted and said, "It's a cultural holiday." As if this excused an absence from school. Now the silver-haired man _did_ roll his eyes, pushing back from his desk and collecting his bag. "Cultural or not, I am not going home until the end of the second semester, if that." Yuki said. It was Ayame's year; the best the ex-rat could hope for was a few histrionic messages on his phone when he woke up the morning of New Year's Day, his older brother having disregarded the difference in time zone and the reek of sake so pungent that it curled off of the slurred words of concern. Yuki said goodbye to his roommate and shut the door. Selfish words of concern. _I hope Kyo and the others come and visit you. I wouldn't want for Honda-san to be alone, especially in a new place…_

_New places are exciting_, she had answered, _and between your letters and Uo-chan and Hana-chan's phone calls, I never feel as though I am alone. I have begun taping your letters to the insides of the closets in my apartment. That way, when I go to put my futon away or take out the rice cooker, someone is always talking to me._

_Who do you talk to at school?_

Had he done this – gone far, far away – for her, or for himself?

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

…_It snows here so much more; right now there is enough that it is up to my knees in some places, if I leave the sidewalks on campus. The hallways are all slick with the melted remains from people's boots, and I wake up every morning to the sound of muffled movement outside. Even the streets are quieter with the snow on the ground..._

…_Machi Kuragi from school said that the email she sent you didn't work. Do Japanese email addresses not work in the United States? She asked for your mailing address. It sounded important, so I gave it to her. I said you would be home for New Year's, maybe, but she didn't say much more. Are you coming home? Everyone is going to a party at Shigure-san's house after the Sohma ceremonies. How many parties we've had this year!..._

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

_...congratulations again for your entrance into university. Will you permit me to write to you? I do not talk with the other students at my university like I did in high school, on the Student Council. Sohma-kun was always unintimidating. If not, then you need not bother with a response…_

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

"Hey, this Machi girl writes in English."

Yuki didn't raise his head from his notes to chastise his roommate for reading his personal documents. It was pointless to indicate where the personal boundaries lay. "Yes," he said, "she does."

"Is _she_ your girlfriend?"

"Machi-san is an old classmate." Yuki held his hand out for the letter.

"But is she your girlfriend?"

"No, she is not my girlfriend."

His roommate handed the typed letter back, commenting, "Huh, so do you know why she's writing to you?"

The silver-haired man looked at the printed script, trying to remember what Machi's voice had sounded like. Gleaming, maybe, her syllables wrapped in a dull sheen. He couldn't remember. "No," he finally answered, "I don't know why." His roommate shrugged. Yuki slipped the letter into his desk drawer, shutting it quietly as if to cover a child's ears before continuing softly, "Words of concern, maybe."

**Things are about to get even more complicated, if y'all can't tell, Unfortunately, I am running the gauntlet of the senior year of high school. I can't begin to fathom when I'll move us on to Part III of "Change". Cross your fingers, but remember the review first!**


	7. Part III: Chapter One

**How long has it been since I crawled onto and slammed a haphazard chapter on the desk? Too long. I need to thank AssassinedAngel for her sudden burst of productivity that kicked my butt back in gear.**

**I do not own Fruits Basket.**

**Part III: **Rubicon

The worst part of English was that no amount of studying, no litany of verbs memorized, would have ever prepared Yuki for the onslaught of idioms. Eating horses was not unusual in his country, but when he had asked why they had ordered pizza instead of buying horse sashimi at the sushi joint nearby, his study group had stared at him in utmost horror. Julianna had visibly flinched. Eventually, pink-cheeked, Yuki asked for clarification. Eating a horse was about the degree of hunger, it turned out. He'd confidently used the phrase "knock them up" to describe hammering at someone's door until they answered it, bleary-eyed. From the suspicious and vaguely alarmed expressions he'd garnered in response, Yuki gave up on using the phrase again. When his roommate finally told him what it meant in the United States – once he'd stopped laughing hard enough to make his eyes water and his face purple – the foreigner had thrown up his hands and renounced figurative language altogether.

After he later asked _what_ it was that final exams sucked, Yuki decided that there was no helping it. At least it made his roommate laugh. And it gave him banal content to put in his letters.

**Chapter One:**

…_Machi Kuragi stopped by again yesterday. She asked me how long it took a letter to reach Washington D.C. and how long it took for a letter to come back. Did you receive her letter, Yukikun? It seemed like it was so important…_

All of Yuki's hope that propelled him through the first semester exams and the miserable weather of winter in a metropolis rested in the cramped space "kun" had filled. Perhaps he was imagining it, but the characters were uncharacteristically distorted, as if she had realized her mistake a few sentences later and hurried to correct herself. _Yuki_. _Tohru_. It was strange how, even in the privacy and darkness of their intimacy, they had not said each other's names. It was all an ocean of air that Yuki could still hear, dissect the crests and troughs until his pen went idle in his hand and he dropped it. He could not help but admire that damn Cat for getting Honda-san to use his first name within a week of their meeting. But Kyo never had any respect for the significance of names. He flung Tohru's name, stretched it and mutilated it with his cocky sneer and raised voice. It was irreverent. Not that Yuki could impugn someone for being irreverent. He himself had not acted with the greatest of respect. How could she want him home for New Year's, for Christmas, for the snow and the purity and the time spent between _lovers_? And yet…

…_Hatsuharu-kun has also come by for your mailing address. I think Uo-chan told Kureno-san that you and I have been keeping a steady correspondence and I that was the person to ask for your address. I don't mind. I like seeing everyone again. Not many of the Sohmas have been visiting since I moved out. Kyo-kun told me it was because of the season over the phone, that everyone's busy. Ayame-san must be putting on quite the performance this year if everyone is so occupied! I wish I could see it. You will have to come over and sit in the park with me and tell me all about it afterward. I'm sorry I don't have a roof for us to talk on anymore. You wouldn't be too busy, would you?..._

Yuki's roommate was beginning to think that the silver-haired man was obsessed. Even in the inclement weather, the foreigner would take his rushed leave with the blue envelope held close to him. Even more baffling was the opened white envelope sitting untouched in the tray Yuki put his paper clips and other supplies in, that Machi girl's return address standing out on the corner like a scar. It gave the roommate the impression of a girl with glasses and a downturned mouth, holding her pen just so. A sour librarian in the making. It was why late one night, Yuki's roommate sat up in bed and asked in a fuzzy and exhausted voice, "What does that Honda girl look like?"

The ex-rat paused, straightening out and looking over his shoulder so that his expression was outlined by the bright desk lamp shining behind him. He'd gotten used to answering rude questions, but this was a new level of outrageous. When he tried to summon an image of the brunette to give a description, all it brought up was the sound of her mouth so close to his ear. He put his pen down before he could drop it. Finally, he answered blankly, "I don't have any pictures of her, Andrew."

"Well, yeah. That's stuff girlfriends and boyfriends do. But you know what she looks like, right? You went to school together." Even in the dark, Yuki knew his roommate was wearing his usual sloppy grin.

Maybe it was because it was the infant hours of the morning. Maybe it was because tomorrow was the last day of the exams and his roommate would be going home that afternoon, leaving Yuki alone in a dorm that would echo even more than it usually did. Maybe it was because he'd spent the last four hours jamming Charles Dickens into his head with only moderate success. The silver-haired man shifted to sit sideways in his chair and admitted, "Honda-san and I lived together."

There was a stretch of silence punctuated by the protestations of his roommate's mattress. Then another light flared, causing Yuki to lift a hand to shade his eyes. He suddenly felt like he was being interrogated as the American came into focus, legs and arms crossed, smile threatening to break his jaw. Yuki frowned. He hoped it'd hurt. His roommate could barely shake his lips out of the grin to form the obvious question. "You lived with her? As in sharing a bathroom lived with her?" He asked.

"Yes, but – "

"As in eating meals together."

"She cooked. I'm terrible at it."

"Well Goddamn, man, why _isn't_ she your girlfriend?"

This sounded like a triumphant conclusion of a four-month long scientific study. Yuki couldn't avoid the sharp edge of sarcasm when he answered flatly, "You share a bathroom with me." The two of them lapsed into silence. This had clearly been the wrong response. Yuki opened his mouth again, eyes wide with panic. His roommate uncrossed his arms and held up a halting hand. "I thought that at first, but Kevin's been trying for months. You can't be." He said magnanimously. The ex-rat just moved his gaze into his lap, straining to remember which one was Kevin. When he realized that information was not forthcoming, he swiveled back to face his notes spread out in front of him.

To most people it would have looked like manic chaos, but Yuki had always had a certain gift for finding order in dysfunction. His room at Shigure's house was one example. The words he could read in the grain of his wood floor there was another. Perhaps the best example was the secret base and Yuki's affinity for coaxing life from the wet dirt. It was one of his few talents that he could describe as self-cultivated. He had hidden it from his family for so many years, just to ensure that it was his own. And then she'd plunked herself down in the damp grass next to him, exclaiming at his success. Unafraid of the dirt on her skirt and so eager to encourage him that the silver-haired boy had revealed to her the only other self-cultivated thing he possessed: the ability to truly smile. His roommate was so _stubborn_ in his attempts to do the same thing. "Honda Tohru-san has long brown hair that is straight. It falls to the middle of her back. Her eyes are brown. She is pale. She's shorter than me." Yuki ventured, incapable of hiding the apprehension in the tone of his voice. Although he spent much of his time combing over memories of Tohru, of the textures of her and the movements she made in thought and motion, it was a differently thing entirely to try to articulate these things in English. At least his inflection had made the underlying fact evident.

"You miss her!" His roommate accused, reminding Yuki of Momiji finally getting a bag of gummy bears open. He had not known that he would miss the disaster that was his family and home life that had so ground against him in Japan. At least he knew how to avoid most of the noise and conflict there; here there were too many people who spoke their minds without moderation. They didn't care if they offended someone in the process, really. They were promised free speech. It didn't matter how far away he went. He couldn't dodge his roommate as easily as he could his prying cousins. Maybe it was because of the idioms. Yuki began shoving his notes into more ordered piles. Who was he kidding?

"If you miss her so much, why aren't you going home for New Year's?" His roommate wheedled, sounding as reasonable and compassionate as someone could when the T-shirt he slept in had a cussword emblazoned on it, "I mean, she writes to you all the time. She's not like the Machi girl – you've been ignoring her – and she obviously misses you too." The last word bubbled into an extravagant yawn. Yuki grit his teeth. "Go back to sleep. My love life isn't worth more than your exam in a few hours." He said calmly, picking up his pen again.

"No, but it's more entertaining. Look, you crossed the Pacific Ocean, not the Rubicon."

"The what?"

"Just look it up. I'm going back to sleep." His roommate sighed, reaching to turn off his light again. It was obvious that the conversation had not gone how he would've liked. The ex-rat went back to his notes on Dickens, failing to convince himself that the red-rimmed gray eyes that met his gaze in the reflective surface of his desk lamp were from sleep-deprivation.

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

…_It's too expensive to fly home just for the winter break, Honda-san. But I'm sure Kyo or Momiji will gladly eat your cooking, so long as there are no leeks and a suitable amount of sweets. Ask Shigure to ask Hatori to make sure Ayame doesn't get anywhere near a telephone on New Year's, when you see him. I'd prefer to avoid the messages in my answering machine asking me about, well, I'd prefer to avoid the messages. I…_

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

…I miss you. I miss you so badly. No one comes to visit from the Sohma family. Not even Kyo-kun. It's cold now, so the children in the park across the street are all bundled up, but I don't really feel like going outside and playing with them anymore. When are you coming home? When are you coming home to me? Uo-chan and Hana-chan tell me that I shouldn't write to you anymore, that you're a lost cause. I don't really know what they mean by that, but you aren't a lost cause, are you? You write to me, so you can't be.

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

Yuki jolted awake, lifting his head and then his hands to peel the piece of paper off of his cheek. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his left hand, switching off the desk lamp with his right. He tried to focus his eyes on the piece of paper he'd extracted from his face. He'd drooled on his draft for the letter he was going to send. So it hadn't been a dream. He really had started it. But the reply…

Yuki looked up the definition of "crossing the Rubicon" at 32,000 feet, when the flight attendant told him he could use his cell phone again.

**For those of us not in a plane to Narita Airport, "crossing the Rubicon" is an idiom meaning "making an irreversible step." It comes from Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon River with his army into Rome, which was at the time a gesture indicative of a military coup. In the later part of this fic, we'll be crossing several Rubicons.**

**Happy Holidays! All I want for Christmas are reviews and a college acceptance letter.**


	8. Part III: Chapter Two

**I honestly don't know what to say, y'all. I had such hopes for 2013, but so far it's been disappointing. Worse than disappointing. It's been horrific. I won't slap my sorry life up here and spoil newcomers' enthusiasm (I think Yuki does an excellent job doing that for me). On a brighter note, I am determined to finish this fic before I start college on August 25. Here we go!**

**I do not own Fruits Basket.**

**Part III: **Rubicon

Yuki wasn't sure what was more alarming: that Sohma Hatsuharu had somehow known that his beloved cousin was returning to Japan and had come to fetch him, or that the ex-ox had decided to do it in full eccentric regalia. The earrings in his ears that had almost been subtle in middle school had turned out to be precursors to gauges. Yuki had the disconcerting urge to stick a pencil through the magical openings Haru had forced into his body. Maybe it was a residual rat instinct – see a small hole, obsess over it and its purpose. He trailed behind Haru as they walked, fascinated by the minuscule port holes he could see through. The senior high school student was far from the strangest looking teenager in Japan, but that was just on the surface.

No, you had to look at his face to see how weird Hatsuharu was. In America, no one would have been particularly bothered. But in Japan, the airport traffic folded out of the way so Haru could continue to stride for the parking lot, where his bike was waiting. Yuki tried to catch the eyes of the people flowing around them in a wordless apology, but no one met his gaze.

It was good to be home.

**Chapter Two:**

"I called the school."

Yuki blinked, his expression distorted by the florescent green of his motorcycle helmet's visor. He relinquished his grip on the seat beneath him to raise the visor. "You called Gallaudet?" He asked, eyes going to the distant red light that had provided a brief pocket of relative silence in which the two cousins could speak and actually hear each other. The younger Sohma nodded, unaware of Yuki studying the angle of the set of shoulders in front of him. He'd long ago learned that reading Hatsuharu's face was a pointless exercise. The ox was so influenced by instincts that reading his body language was a far better indicator of what Haru felt. The angle of the shoulders rose like a book being closed from both sides, then relaxed again. A shrug. Safe enough. Yuki put the visor back in its place. "It cost 400 yen a minute." Haru said, his voice still flat and thick, the kind of sluggish drawl that had led his family to believe he really was stupid.

"Oh," said Yuki.

"The woman put me on hold while she checked if you were around. And you weren't around, but it still cost me 3200 yen. But she told me that you had left notice that you were taking a leave of absence for New Year's, and I knew that meant you were coming home."

The light turned green, and the sound of trucks belching and cars sputtering gave Yuki ample cover for a response that was not forthcoming. The motorcycle was like the gauges – the older Hatsuharu got, the more extreme he became. The rat could still remember the black and white-haired teenager roaming on his rickety bicycle. He found that he didn't like the changes Haru had made. The hum of the motorcycle's engine made the bones in his legs feel like they were being elongated, wilting as they rode. And what was the point of the gauges? It wasn't like the ox looked like the average Japanese high school student to begin with. Yuki closed his eyes and did not open them again until Haru's elbow ricocheted off of the green visor, jostling the older Sohma's head off of his back. "If you fall asleep, you will fall off the bike too." Yuki bobbed his head loosely to indicate that he had heard, lifting a fist to rub his eye and instead bouncing it off of the closed green visor hard enough to thump Haru between the shoulder blades. The ox didn't even flinch. Instead, after half an hour of interrupted riding out of central Tokyo – during which Yuki decided he wasn't even sure he liked Hatsuharu anymore period, gauges or no gauges – he delivered to the gray-eyed man the retaliating blow.

"Tohru-kun has stopped answering her phone."

Yuki sat up straighter, the siege of the motorcycle's engine in his head ebbed away by the pounding of his own heart. He didn't answer immediately; his concentration was on the stumbles in the language of Tohru's letters. For months now he had been trying to decipher what she was laboring not to mention. _I have done this. _Unperturbed by his cousin's silence, the ox continued, "When I went to see her last week, she was as happy as ever to see me. You know how Tohru-kun is. She was even happier to give me your mailing address. She said you would probably like hearing from the rest of us, since she was the only one you wrote to." Yuki found his fingers clenching the molded rim of the motorcycle's seat. "I lost the piece of paper she gave me that had your address on it, so I called her the next day to ask for it again. She didn't answer the phone. I've tried to reach her since then, but she never answers. The phone rings through."

Yuki could remember her ringtone better than her voice when she answered the phone. Since going far, far away, his memories of Tohru had been consolidated and cherished, the Japanese crammed and crumbling until the only thing that supported it was the sound of her breath in his ear. It was remarkable how deeply he needed an image to hold onto with equal shameful desperation.

Then again, the ringtone had been a comfort to him. Tohru was not called often, but her two friends, Hanajima and Uotani-san, texted her in a barrage that lasted from the moment they parted at school to the moment the light under Tohru's door was finally extinguished. The happy chirping of a message had at first kept Yuki up at night. It was distracting and unnerving that something so foreign to him was living in the room next to his. He had antagonized the brunette for it in the beginning, though any sleepy grudge for the night previous dissolved in her brilliant smile and bright morning greeting, accompanied by the dusty, humid smell of rice steaming. And once the rat had realized how much he required that smile and greeting to cause him to do the same to his peers at school, the ringtone for texts became… calming. So long as the noise came again and again, he didn't have to worry that Tohru was far away or hurt. The chirrups meant she was happy; that meant that he was happy.

The regimented road was no longer flanked by metal guardrails and soaring street lamps. Yuki turned his head to look at the houses as they scrolled by, trying to recognize one of them and orient himself. Hatsuharu had not stopped speaking, but the college student wasn't listening. At least, not until the stupid ox elbowed him again. Yuki again failed to dodge the jab – months of no practice had gummed up his reflexes – but did successfully swear creatively in English. Andrew would have applauded. Haru's elbow withdrew. "I'm happy to know you learned something useful in the United States." The ex-ox said sarcastically, earning himself another hit between the shoulder blades, though this time intentional. Haru's returning blow was even more severe.

"I could be convinced to hate her as much as I like her."

Yuki blinked and said nothing. The houses were familiar now, but confusing; this was a strange route to take to get to Shigure's house. The streets were smaller and had to be navigated at a slower speed. Then he realized Haru was delaying their arrival. "She makes so many of us happy, but it wasn't until you left that I knew she was just as good at destroying us. I'm black and white. I could hate her for hurting you as much as I like her for helping you. You're my beloved, after all."

Now the silver-haired man did not even blink in feigned indifference. He sat straighter still until the vibrations of the motorcycle drowned out the flickers of his own thoughts once more. He replied, "You shouldn't hate her for something she didn't know she did."

"She should have known."

Yuki was taken aback at the sudden venom in Haru's words. Black Haru was a mysterious entity. While White was capable of compassion and benevolence, Black could only tear at surfaces until the things that mattered leaked out. Black Haru intended to draw blood every time. They had slowed to a crawl, to the point where Yuki could have gotten off and outrun the motorcycle that was laboring loudly in its lowest gear. It was like the damn contraption was blowing raspberries at him. Yuki jabbed the point of Haru's right shoulder and said, "Turn off the engine, Haru."

"People are expecting you at Shigure's house."

It had been nine months since Yuki had felt that odd sensation that came from feeling like he was on his way home, to where people expected him. Sure, Andrew knew he was going to be around at certain points of the day, but that wasn't laying aside tasks to greet the ex-rat. He swallowed before asking, "Who did you tell that I was coming back?"

"Shigure, since you were going to be in his house. So Ayame and Hatori know. Ayame called me this morning to ask if you preferred latex over leather."

"May I stay with you?"

Hatsuharu laughed and cut the engine, letting the smoother, brighter sound surmount the ugly puttering of his motorcycle as it died. Yuki was struck by how quiet the houses were, how far away the skyscrapers seemed. And the walls between the houses and the lack of sidewalks. How had he ever managed to make friends with anyone in the first place? There was nothing there to make him feel welcome; just that he was safe. Hatsuharu bounced his elbow off of Yuki's helmet again and said, "I didn't stop here for you to gape at the back of my head. If you're looking for a way out of your welcome home party, here's your hide-out."

Yuki removed his helmet and looked at the buildings, baffled. He peered at the names written by the gates. "Hatsuharu," he said after a moment, "I don't know any of these people."

"Fine, so I didn't get you _exactly_ there. But I've got a date who's been waiting on me for over an hour now and I need the gasoline."

"You're kidding."

"Just walk until you find a playground with a set of swings that are painted red. You'll know which place you want."

The silver-haired man clambered off of the motorcycle as gracefully as one could while wrestling a helmet off and shouldered his duffel. He glared at Hatsuharu, who secured the spare helmet on its hook before looking back at his cousin. The ox grinned. "I wouldn't walk around looking like that, darling. The playground's left at the next intersection, I think."

"I hope you crash."

"I love you too."

Yuki sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Haru," he said, "I've been awake for something like twenty hours. I just want to go home."

Hatsuharu shrugged and gunned the motorcycle. He punted the kickstand back into its place on the bike and angled it to make a U-turn. "You know what they say." He replied, "Home is where the heart is."

He left Yuki coughing.

**I'm leaving you with yet another semi-cliff-hanger. I decided to do this because if I continued on, y'all would have to wait another week while I wrote another 2,000 words. Luckily, as soon as I post this up, I'm getting right back to the writing. Again, I apologize for the long, long, long, **_**long**_** wait. I just hope there are still some people left willing to read what I write! Please review and tell me how neglectful and cruel I am.**


	9. Part III: Chapter Three (Conclusion)

**You have permission to hit me. Hard. Just don't do it to the computer screen; you'll knock it out and then you won't be able to read. Smack a pillow or something. By the way, after a cursory survey of Tokyo (from the air; my time on the ground is obsolete data), I'm placing the mysterious location of Shigure's house in Western Tokyo, in either Musashimurayama or Higashimurayama, both of which border a large chunk of green surrounding a rather large lake. Of course, as soon as I publish someone will tell me that Takaya specified where Fruits Basket took place, but for now, that's where I've stuck it – about an hour west of Shinjuku. **

**I do not own Fruits Basket.**

**Part III:** Rubicon

Left at the next intersection put Yuki at a dead end. There weren't any swing sets. There wasn't even anything red – at least, not at first. As soon as Yuki realized that his cousin had abandoned him in the empty suburban streets of Western Tokyo, he began to see red everywhere.

He took a deep breath and walked back the way he had come, eyes barraging the surname plates on the gates crowded together. Suzuki, Watanabe, Sato, Takahashi, Nakamura. Familiar surnames, but there were no faces to go with them. A cat with a hooked tail tiptoed across the road ahead. Yuki only breathed again when he could tell that it was not a bright orange. _Moron_. Still wary, he watched the cat pause and look back at him before breaking into a purposeful trot. The crooked ending of the tail was like a beckoning finger, and Yuki hefted his duffel bag into a more comfortable position to follow it. It was a full five minutes and a possible return to faith in God, but Yuki followed the cat.

Exactly back to where Hatsuharu had dumped him.

_Stupid cat._

**Chapter Three:**

He eventually did find the red swing set, nestled in a tiny park that was guarded on either side by expensive homes. The sun was sliding effortlessly away, leaving the silver-haired man in interspersed rings of light from the floodlights that lit the house numbers. He turned away from the house at the left flank of the park, frustrated. He was not a perfectionist, but for once, for _once_, he would have liked to have ended up exactly where he thought he should be. His duffel bag was forcing his wrist too far back over his shoulder; it felt like the bones in his hand and his wrist were pulverizing each other. He dropped the duffel bag and sat on the street next to it, crossing his legs and closing his eyes in an attempt to collect himself. Repeat: do not kill Haru. Do not kill Haru. Do _not_ kill Haru. Kick him very hard in the shins but do _not_ kill him.

Yuki opened his eyes when he heard the chains of the swing set jangling. He didn't know what he was expecting to see, but the cat with the hooked tail rubbing its back on the swing set was a disappointment. He sighed and got to his feet. If the cat was going to follow him around the neighborhood, he may as well leave the neighborhood. If he started walking now, he could get home in thirty minutes. He swallowed the cowering instinct in him to never let a potential predator out of sight and turned around, putting his back to the cat. Even with the curse gone, the behavior of the rat in him had not diminished. He still took what he wanted and scurried away from the light before he was discovered. And even with all that he had taken, he still wasn't satisfied. He had come back, as he always would, for more.

He flipped his duffel back over his shoulder and looked across the street at the apartment building that faced the park. His fingers curled over the strap of the duffel convulsed, unfurling like a morning glory and then going stiff as the duffel slipped out of his grip and onto the ground again. Tohru's name was already out of his mouth and dissolving in the dusky air above the street lights before he remembered to blink. Eyes stinging, Yuki picked up his duffel and walked up two flights of stairs to the second door on the second floor. From inside he could hear her moving around, the soft clap of stockinged feet on tatami, which he had not known until that moment he had missed.

She was safe – she was talking to someone. Yuki moved his weight from one foot to the other and set the duffel down behind him, head tilted toward the door as if hearing his name called. But Tohru would never say his name out loud, not now. He had gone too far away to hear her if she did. She would not whisper it into his ear in the swollen darkness, finding his hand between them with hers and drawing it up to rest by their heads as he lay back beside her. After hearing it said so, in the dark, Yuki did not think he could hear her say his name in any other way.

From inside the apartment, he heard her say, "…come home for New Year's. But Hana-chan, he's so busy! I could never expect for him to fly back to Japan for only a few days. Yuki-kun should be worrying about other things, and he is."

At his name, the silver-haired man took an involuntary step backward. His heel sent the duffel bag skittering across the concrete floor, the strap scraping, until it was stopped by the railing. The shock of hearing his name spoken aloud – and to her friend, over the phone – grabbed his feet by the ankles and held him there while the door opened. Something loud and enormous was rushing in his ears – the Rubicon, maybe? "Actually," he said apologetically to the brunette and the phone loosely held in her hand, "I am back in Japan for a week."

And whatever else Yuki wanted to say was pushed out of him as he was forced back against the railing by the strength of Tohru's embrace.

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

The first things she showed him were his letters taped up inside of her closets and next to the sink, as if she thought that he would not have believed it. Yuki smiled at them, embarrassed to have been caught and then offered the evidence of how distant he had been. But Tohru had never meant to hurt him, and even after what he had done, he did not think she meant to now. As always, he simply felt the guilt that welled up inside of him from abusing such innocence.

The brunette skipped over the crowded space of her apartment, scrambling to open the lid of the rice cooker so that the rice wouldn't turn to mush. She absently wiped the steam on her hands off on her apron as she returned to her table to sit across from Yuki, legs tucked under her and to the side. Her smile could not have been more radiant, more content, as she poured tea into a second cup. "Are you sure you don't want to call Shigure-san?" Tohru asked, proffering the second cup to Yuki, "They must be waiting for you. I'd hate for them to wait for a long time and then realize that you aren't coming."

Yuki shook his head and drank from his tea, despite it being too hot. Jet-lag was beginning to set in. In America, he had spent the day of adjustment fiercely memorizing the Gallaudet campus and surrounding area so that he would never have to use that stupid map again. Now he flexed his palms around the cup of tea, not looking at Tohru's face. His first question should have been about her apartment or her search for work, as her salary as a cleaning lady couldn't have been enough to pay for the apartment and utilities. Instead, gray eyes half open, he asked, "How is Kyo?"

He did not like the breath of dead silence that followed, but he enjoyed knowing that, even after ten months in the United States, he still could open a conversation from the outside. Americans had the habit of starting at the center of the conversation and working their way out. He much preferred peeling away the layers one by one until the core was the only thing left, still intact and usable. Tohru put her hands in her lap and answered quietly, "Kyo-kun… he hasn't spoken to me since I moved out of Shigure-san's house. I think he resents me leaving. He wasn't ready to be alone again."

Now the silver-haired man was silent. His palms had acclimated as much as they could to the temperature of the tea and the ceramic cup, but there was still heat left over. He was roasting next to the heat. He swallowed, his throat dry, and considered again the possibility of being struck by the Plague, lightning, or another bout of intoxication. _You're nothing_, Akito whispered through the crack of the door. Had he honestly thought at one point that he could make Tohru happy? Something uncomfortable and scratchy between his collar bones was making it hard for him to speak, compounded by the small issue that he did not know what to say. Eventually, he managed, "You are important to him. I can understand why he would hate to see you leave, especially if he did not know why you thought you needed to go."

Tohru set down her tea on the table and spread her hands around it in a halo, flat against the wood. "I would go back if he would tell me he misses me." She said to her hands. Her face angled down made her brown hair drift over her shoulder.

"He doesn't do things like that." Yuki answered. Tohru's shoulders rose up like a set of jaws about to swallow her drooping head. Why did he do this? He put his tea down and made to stand, almost grateful that the brunette was looking downward. He said, "Maybe I should go to Shigure-san's house, just to be sure that Ayame hasn't called the authorities."

She raised her head and smiled so widely that her eyes closed, her face shining. She said, "Ayame-san nearly did, when you left. He thought-…"

She clapped her hands over her mouth like she had revealed a secret that held life and death in its clammy grasp. She looked down again, more hair sliding over her shoulders as her back hunched. Yuki stood up. "He thought," Tohru began again, "that you had run away."

"Tohru –" She only curled into herself more at her name, bare of its suffix like a fruit stripped of its peel: a mess. What had he done? "– You know I could never run away. You saw me run the mile in high school. I can't run very far."

The brunette either laughed or gasped in pain. He walked around the perimeter of the table and sat at her side, his arm around her shoulders. She was so close. She smelled like cooked rice and some kind of flower and shampoo. He had heard Kyo tell her once that she smelled like strawberries, but it was a lie. Tohru smelled like what she had done today, like cleanliness and the food that she had prepared. It was the smell of home, of life. It was better than strawberries. The Stupid Cat just didn't know how to articulate that. He tipped the side of his head toward hers, his hand traveling up and down her forearm. "I'm sorry." He said.

She shook her head fiercely, lifting her hands off of the table to scrub at her eyes. "No, no!" She answered sharply, straightening out. She pivoted on her knees to face him, hands clenched into fists on her thighs. The rat's arm slid off of her shoulders. Shocked, he said, "I did this to you."

"No," Tohru contradicted, "you didn't." And she kissed him.

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

…_I woke up in your room when it started raining. Shigure-san didn't know where you had gone, though he suggested I put on something other than my underwear and one of your shirts before I call Hatori-san. I think that was a matter of principle more than anything else; at heart, Shigure-san is a gentleman. You must have known that, or else you would have never let me stay in his house. You have always protected me, but now I think you are trying to protect me from you. Yuki, it's been a week and all I want is for you to be close enough to speak into my ear again. Your cell phone doesn't work anymore, or the email address Kakeru Manabe-san set up for you. Writing to you is the only thing I can think to do. I miss you. I want you to come home…_

**/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\**

The words were weaving now like a constellation of pyrite in a riverbed. Yuki bent forward, hoping to aid the obscurity to resolve. Instead, words became achingly crystalline for a blazing moment and then were blurred, ruined by a grasping pain that overflowed, turning ink into salty, liquid nonsense. "You can't mean this." He said to Tohru, eyes roaming again to read the date that had been written so painstakingly in the upper lefthand corner.

From the way her hands met his over the piece of paper, he knew that she was smiling, but he was afraid to raise his head to find her insincere or superficial.

"I do mean it." He heard the brunette say in the distance. "I didn't send it because it was important to you that you leave."

The man shook his head, lifting his hand to his mouth in ineffable emotion, only realizing once his lips were at her fingertips that he had brought her hand with it.

"I wanted it." He heard her say, the golden edging of it just as indistinct in its blooms as the original fireworks had been that night so long ago. An image. He wanted an image. Yuki raised his head then to secure her sweet face in his mind, fingers that had burned against fingers that had burned. Tohru was smiling, her thumb outlining the ridges of the rat's knuckles. "I wanted it." She repeated, "And I was so happy because it was you, Yuki. I was so happy."

Tohru retrieved the letter from Yuki's hand and put it on the table next to her tepid tea. She sat back on her bent legs and rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm so happy." She said.

Yuki laced their fingers together and turned his head to speak into the familiar darkness behind her left ear. "I missed you too." He said.

**As I said to a reader: Because sometimes it really is that simple. I hope you guys enjoyed this fic. As far as fanfiction goes, this has to be the most complex relationship I've written about. I debated making it clear what, exactly, it was Yuki and Tohru did together that night, but the impression those actions had on them would have been the same if they had gone to third base or home run. If there is someone out there who really is desperate to know what it was they did, review saying so and I'll tell you. Happy summer.**


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